


Just a Little Excitement (To Get Me through the Day)

by Oort



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Breathplay, M/M, Starring Sebastian why-do-I-keep-getting-sexy-partners Castellanos, for therapeutic purposes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oort/pseuds/Oort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian is restless.  Joseph helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Little Excitement (To Get Me through the Day)

 

Used to be, Sebastian would wake up and he couldn’t breathe.

Sometimes it was the dreams.  Creatures with too many limbs and not enough skin, chasing him through endless tunnels; drowning in a river that didn’t have a bottom, and when he opened his mouth it was blood that poured into his lungs; blank-faced nurses that turn out to be wooden dolls, but it was Sebastian who was held up by strings.  

Sometimes it was the sound of branches on the window, knocking clumsily with the rain, and he’d be convinced it was shotgun barrels and gunshots, and that there’d be bodies when he went downstairs, staring up at him with wide glass eyes and shirts that should have been white.

Sometimes it was nothing at all, but he would lunge forward anyway, scrambling for the knife under his pillow and the revolver on his bedside table before he realized, panting in the middle of his room, that the only thing he had to worry about was a headache from squinting too hard in the sun.

That doesn’t happen anymore.  Not most days, anyway.  And he’s grateful. He’s not stupid, he knows what the dreams and the scrambling meant, and the faster he can get rid of them for good, the happier he’ll be.  

But there’s something about the few seconds afterward, when he’s realizing the threat is gone but he’s still sharp-eyed with the rush of it, that makes him restless on the days he wakes up calm.  It’s like he’s not fully alert yet, like he’s waiting for something to happen that he can’t see and the fear of it is clouding over everything else.

His therapist says it’s a normal response, and that it will pass.  But Sebastian works with frantic mothers and racists with hit lists, and he can’t afford to be distracted. Not when he’s finally getting his goddamn feet back under him again.

“Try doing something outside of work,” the therapist tells him, which is a nice way of saying _get a fucking hobby._ “A sport, perhaps?”  But everything Sebastian can think of sounds tedious or too much commitment for a job that keeps him with such long, odd hours, and he’s not keen on paying money for classes he doesn’t know that he’ll like.  It’s not like he’s swimming in cash, after all.  He also doesn’t want to be with other people after a long day, and that’s the only time he’d be free to do anything.  Besides, they’d ask him about his life, which he’s not going to tell to fucking strangers, because have you _seen_ the way his life has been.

He wakes up in the morning, breathing, and thinks, _Joseph._

 

* * *

_“I’ve got a request for you, if you don’t mind,” Sebastian says over stamped manilla folders and scribbled pads of looseleaf._

_“Hmm?” says Joseph.  He jots down something on the back of a page and flips it over, sliding it beside one of the piles that’s been building up on his desk._

_They’re alone, Sebastian made sure, but he still gets up and leans into Joseph’s ear to say it, because it’s not really the sort of thing you say in a workplace.  Joseph turns his head toward him and taps his pen once in the center of his chin._

_“All right,” he says._

* * *

 

It’s the drive home when it creeps up on him.  Knowing Joseph is in the car right behind him.  Following him.  Sebastian has to force his hands to relax on the wheel time and again. His head feels strange, heavy and light at the same time, like something’s muffling it.  But then again not, because every sound seems louder.  Have the stoplights always been this bright?

The feeling stays through the normal pleasantries— do they want to eat now, no, but there’s meatloaf in the fridge; Connolly was more of a bastard than usual today, but what else is new; hanging up the coats and taking off their shoes.  Carpets, Sebastian learned in college, stay cleaner a lot longer when you don’t go tracking mud all over them.

Then there’s silence, an uneasy one that Sebastian doesn’t like.  He figured this would happen, but he doesn’t really know what to do to break it, so it goes on for a long time before Joseph clears his throat.

“So,” he says. He pushes his sleeves father up his arms. “Where do you want to do this?”

“The couch is fine,” says Sebastian.  Joseph knows where it is, of course, but he waits until Sebastian starts moving and follows him.  Sebastian sits down immediately because he doesn’t want another round of standing staring at each other. After a moment of hesitation, Joseph sits down beside him.

“Right,” says Joseph.  Only the way his eyes are slightly too wide lets Sebastian know that he’s not perfectly calm.  Well, that and his voice.  “Tap my knee to stop?”

“Sounds good.” Sebastian tugs the knot on his tie farther down. His collar’s already open, but it wouldn’t hurt to make things easier, so he undoes another button.  There’s a kind of a buzzing feeling in his chest, and it’s not comfortable, but it’s not really uncomfortable, either.  He frowns when Joseph starts rolling down his gloves.

“No gloves?” Sebastian’s aiming for joking, but it comes out a little more plaintive than he’d like.

“I can’t feel as well through them,” Joseph points out. “It’s kind of important for me to be able to feel your pulse.”  He reaches forward to place his gloves on the coffee table, one on top of the other.  “This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, you know.”

There’s no reason at all why that should be surprising.  Joseph’s personal life is is own.  There’s also no reason why it should make Sebastian have to swallow, hard, but that’s not important right now.

“Ready?” Joseph says, sitting back up.  His hands are in his lap, relaxed and pale against his slacks.  Sebastian realizes that he’s been staring at them and jerks his head up. 

“Go ahead.”  There’s no possible way Joseph can hear how hard his heart is beating.  He’s not close enough.  He’s getting closer though, and— _ahhh._

The first touch of Joseph’s fingers on his throat makes his breath hiss sharply, and Joseph takes a minute to rub the skin there, comforting little circles, before sliding forward so that his palms rest flat over Sebastian’s windpipe, overlapping so that his thumbs press into the underside of his chin.  This has been in his dreams too, Joseph with his hands around Sebastian’s throat, his face all veins and boils.  But it’s different when he knows Joseph has control of it.  When Sebastian has asked for it.  Feels like a good middle finger to those dreams, too, for fucking him up so badly.  He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, waiting, and then—

“No,” says Joseph;  he’s pulling his hands away.  “I’m worried about your neck at this angle, you’ll be straining.  Might hurt something.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point? I know, it isn’t,” says Sebastian, before Joseph can correct him.  And you know what, fuck it, they’ve come this far and it’s not like things aren’t weird already, so he leans back and pats his thighs.  “Just sit in my lap.”

“Father Christmas, wonderful,” says Joseph, and Sebastian has a moment of panic— shit, maybe that was too much, what if he leaves— but Joseph is shifting to his knees and crawling over onto him.  They have a bit of a struggle figuring out where all the legs are going to go  (“Shit, fuck,” “Ow, not there” “How old are these couch cushions, Sebastian”) but they get Joseph settled in, his legs folded on either side of Sebastian’s and resting back on his heels.  A piece of Joseph’s hair has come free in all of it, and he wrinkles his nose at the way it flops down over his forehead.  It’s cute, but Sebastian’s not going to tell him that.

“Okay?” Joseph asks, and Sebastian nods.  He closes his eyes at once this time.  Joseph’s hands are soft, so soft, and warm. He can feel the pulse through his fingers, or maybe that’s his own pulse and they’re— stopping.

“Open your eyes.”

Sebastian does, impatient, and Joseph’s looking at him.  “I need to watch your eyes, it helps. This is not a thing you take chances on. I thought you said _you’d_ done this before.”

“I have.”  It’s true.  Myra— but he doesn’t want to think of Myra now.

“Fine.  Eyes open.”  

Joseph presses forward again. It makes Sebastian want to laugh, to see him staring like he’s comparing handwriting samples, and is that a blush?  Oh, he’s definitely going to tease him about that later. 

There’s something about being the reason for that focus, though, that keeps Sebastian from complaining.  He’s always liked being looked at.

He can feel his breath gathering in the top of his chest, under his breastbone, and the fingers against the tendons in his neck are merciless. The skin on the underside of his chin is pulling taught and that’s it— he gasps in one last time and then he can’t anymore, he can’t, and the pressure in his chest is building, and his hands start to claw at Joseph’s waist— when did they get there?— and nothing matters but breathing, breathing, he can’t breathe, he feels as though his head is floating away and his vision’s blurring with tears—

The pressure lets up abruptly.  Sebastian blinks his eyes clear and sees Joseph with his elbows bent, his hands up by his ears.

“Why’d you stop?” Sebastian says; his voice comes out hoarse.

Joseph glares at him.  “You weren’t tapping.  Your hands weren’t even _near_ my knees.”

“So? I was fine.”

“No, you weren’t,” Joseph says, and shifts a little in Sebastian’s lap. Sebastian tightens his grip on his waist instinctively.  “I’m not going to do this if you’re not going to pay attention.”

“I _was_ paying attention,” Sebastian snaps. Then he sees the way Joseph’s lips are pressed together, the furrow in between his brows, and drops his hands back down to his sides.  “Look.  Joseph.  You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that.”

“You don’t trust me, then?”

“I trust you!” Joseph says.  He sighs.  “With everything except yourself.  And I believe I have the right not to trust you for that last one.”

This is probably about the drinking, again.  Sebastian does not want to have this conversation. _Especially_ not when his partner is perched on his lap in his empty apartment, because his brain decided this shit was a better adrenaline spike than jogging. 

He _hates_ jogging.

Fuck it.  He needs this, and if Joseph’s only objection is that he’s absentminded, then that’s nothing at all.

“I’ll tap,” Sebastian says.  “I promise.  Look,” he puts his hand on Joseph’s knee.  “All ready to go.”  It’s a bit of an awkward angle for his wrist, so he moves to cup the top of Joseph’s thigh instead, but Joseph doesn’t object.

“You’d better,” he says.  “Ready?”

“If something’s actually going to happen this time.”

Joseph snorts, but he reaches out again.  He doesn’t spend as long massaging his throat, starts almost immediately, and Sebastian can hear the whine he gives, but he doesn’t have a lot of time to be embarrassed at how high and needy it sounds.  It may be his imagination but his throat feels more tender, and his breath thicker, pressing down on his lungs, burning.  He swears he can feel each one of Joseph’s fingers individually on the sides of his neck and his chest jumps uselessly, there’s no air, and there’s that high, the crest of it up and _just_ out of reach, and this, this was what he needed. He can’t breathe and he can feel it in his entire body, and every cell is fighting for him to push Joseph off and suck in as much oxygen as he can but he can’t, he can’t do anything but sit there and _not breathe_.

He jabs his fingers into Joseph’s thigh and Joseph releases.  Sebastian coughs and gulps at the air, wheezing a bit when he takes in too much. Joseph rubs one of his hands up and down Sebastian’s chest, soothing, and Sebastian raises his head, expecting him to look worried. 

He doesn’t.  He’s staring at his hand moving over Sebastian’s chest, rasping against his waistcoat.  He’s smirking; Sebastian can see the flash of teeth.  “Good,” he says.  Mumbles it, really, so far under his breath that Sebastian’s sure he wasn’t meant to hear it.

Fucking _hell._ The dryness in Sebastian’s mouth has nothing to do with lack of air.

“Thank you,” he manages, and Joseph’s eyes jump to his so quickly it makes him dizzy.  His hand clenches on Sebastian’s chest.

“Can I…” Joseph says, his fingers twisting deep in fabric. His eyes flick down. Sebastian barely has time to finish his _“Yes”_ before Joseph is leaning in.

His mouth is already open when it finds Sebastian’s; it’s wet when Sebastian follows suit, and Joseph slides his tongue down the length of Sebastian’s, presses hard against him, and _God._ There are hands in Sebastian’s hair, two of them, and he kind of wants Joseph to yank his head back, but when he tries to goad him to it by biting, Joseph pulls back.  
  
“Slowly,” he says against Sebastian’s lips, and he keeps to it, even when Sebastian wraps an arm around him and tries to move his mouth faster. He cups a hand around the back of Sebastian’s head to hold it still, trails the other one down over Sebastian’s shoulder and strokes at his arm until he relaxes it.  Sebastian can’t bring himself to complain, not when Joseph is curling his tongue against the roof of Sebastian’s mouth and humming deep in his throat, and it’s sweet, ah, hot and addicting, and when Joseph’s wandering hand touches the side of Sebastian’s neck he groans.

Despite all their earlier floundering, it’s still not the most comfortable position how they’re squashed together on the couch, so it’s far too soon when Joseph pushes himself away with a wince and stands up to shake out his legs.  He holds a hand out for Sebastian, automatic, and Sebastian uses it to pull himself up and then kisses Joseph again, for no other reason than because he wants to.  The smile Joseph gives him afterward is almost shy.

“Will you need me to help you with this again, you think?” He asks, and Sebastian has to admire how mild his voice sounds.

Sebastian grins. “That I might.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Wow, you don’t like jogging, Sebastian? I never would have guessed from your superb stamina for sprinting.)
> 
>  
> 
> Alternate titles:
> 
> In which we learn a bit about Sebastian’s kinks
> 
> This is definitely not supposed to sound like sex, no really
> 
> No glove much love (but not, like, with dicks, because that’s super irresponsible)*
> 
> The entirety of the song “Breathe” from In the Heights
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer, for my peace of mind: If you’re going to try breathplay, please do a ton of research and be very careful. You can die. Self asphyxiation is even more dangerous, and you should have somebody nearby if you’re going to do it. There’s a reason Sebastian asked Joseph over to help him, and it’s not just because he likes his ass.
> 
>  
> 
> *I meant that it’s often a good idea to use condoms in your sex, and that it’s possible one or both of Sebastian and Joseph have dicks. Not that sex itself is irresponsible. Go wild. With condoms.


End file.
